Lulu is a hardware solution that interfaces between an LED light source, an optic fiber strand or bundle, and sewable soft circuit connections. Lulu is providing a simple, reliable toolset for people who want to use side glow optical fibers in their eTextile and wearable projects. Use of light in textile and fashion design is […]

January 2018, hosted jointly by Interface Cultures and Fashion and Technology departments at the Art University Linz, Austria * * * This workshop is only open to Art University Linz students. Students should only sign up for this course if they can commit to attending the full schedule (see bellow). * * * For the […]

A snap connection not only makes for a robust e-textile electrical connector, it also make for a great pivot point. When you have a single electrical connection to make the snap can double as both electrical connection and pivot point. But what when you have more than one electrical connection?

Sick of LEDs shining directly in your eyes? We are too! This design has the LEDs mounted inside the curves of this serpentine strip so that the LED faces down towards the the fabric and what you see is the light reflected off the surface of the fabric.

Nov 29,30,Dec 4,9,2018 10:00- 17:00 elab Weissensee Art Academy Berlin. Assignment The next 2 days will be something like mini hackathon. It is time for you to explore what these textile sensors can do as interface and think about different types of interaction with digital technology. For this, we give ourselves a framework/story. Inspired by […]

We very kindly received samples of this elastic conductive thread made with Statex conductive thread from Filix in France. We have not had time to use/test them for anything yet, but will post about it here as soon as we do. SC 4194 ECRU NF CC LY800 DC SS35µ+Cu40-PA2/78/68 Core : LYCRA 800 DTEX Cover […]

Build a simple circuit with an LED, a coin-cell battery pouch and interrupt the full circuit connection by inserting two crocodile clips. When the clips connect, the circuit is complete and the LED light will shine. When you mount a textile sensor between the clips, the LED brightness will depend on the resistance of the […]

A metal clothing button and a button hole that works as state switch. When it is fastened, the connection is made, and if you open the button, the connection gets broken. *This sensor is inspired by the Swatch exchange sample “Button Switch” by Ricardo O’Nascimento Step by Step Cut a hole on the fabric. Make […]

Surely a button Is self-explanatory And yet causes stress (haiku from Kate Fletcher’s Craft of Use, p20) This post covers a few different ways you can construct your own electrical “pushbutton” or embed a ready-made mechanical pushbutton (also known as momentary switch) into a textile button. What is nice about the mecanical mechanism is that […]

You can make your own mini-breadboards by cutting up a larger one. Flickr set >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/sets/72157672660416318 Peel back the stick and remove the metal from the rows you will cut: Cut: Replace the sticky: Five mini breadboard from one long one:

August 20-25 2018, KOBA in Berlin, Germany INTRODUCTION For the last 6 months KOBAKANT have been running KOBA, a tailorshop for electronic textiles and wearable technology in Berlin, Germany. The KOBA School of Wickedfabrics is intended as a time and place for us to formalize our tailoring process and share this experiance with you. This […]

“arduino is an open source computer hardware and software company, project, and user community that designs and manufactures single-board microcontrollers and microcontroller kits for building digital devices and interactive objects that can sense and control objects in the physical and digital world.” (wikipedia>>) Arduino website >> https://www.arduino.cc/ in this workshop, we use Flora, which is […]

Textile Sensors One can make different types of sensors. Some sensors have two states, “on” or “off”, or another words, “contact” or “no contact” like on/off switches of a light. Other sensors have range of states, like a dimmer of a light. The two state kind of sensors are digital sensors, and the sensors that […]

August 6-11, 2018 at KOBA Explore the Material collect samples and make a page for your swatch book. Please check: How much resistance? What are the characteristics? (physical/ electrical) Does it change its conductivity? if so how, what is the changing range? Multimeter We can not see the electrons flowing. So we can not tell […]

Time: May 16,18 2018 10:00- 17:00 (15:00 on 16th) Time: May 30, June 1 2018 10:00- 17:00 Location: eLab, Weissensee Art Academy Berlin This workshop is only open to KHB students This is a series of 4 workshops to learn how one can move textile surface with electricity. In the first workshop, participants will learn […]

For the last 6 months KOBAKANT have been running KOBA, e-textile tailorshop in Berlin, Germany. During this time we’ve been refining our skills in some of the most basic techniques like making hard-soft connections and detachable parts. But we have also been confronted with learning bespoke tailoring skills in taking a customer’s ideas from concept […]

A modular system for prototyping the exact placement of sensors, to be able to use/try/test them before finalizing where they go! Nadja Kutz has been developing all kinds of ideas for making herself datagloves (and senor-wear) to allow her to interact with her computer in alternate (more healthy) ways. One nice quick&cheap solutions she has […]

A dataglove made from piezoresistive fabric with safetey pin connectors that can be pinned to different parts of the glove to capture stretch in different areas. Links: E-Textile Dataglove Overview: http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=6730 Dataglove Overview: http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=7114 Flickr set: https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157679861886694/ Using the snap diamond breakout board design >> http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=6703

Inspired by this upcoming workshop during E-Textile Spring Break titled “Body to Body: RFID + PAN Workshop, where Ingo + Nicole will “…introduce a DIY implementation of these systems to pass data through bodies to other bodies”. To make the connection between the body and the breadboard, this bracelet has conductive fabric on the back/bottom […]

This connector makes the connection between a piece of 1,5mm diameter sideglow fiber optic and an SMD Neopixel (controllable RGB LED). The four connections from the LED are broken out to rings on a tube which holds the LED on one end and holds the fiber optic from the other end. Thanks to Ben for […]

EMF (Electro Magnetic Field) is all around us, but we do not see or hear them. By amplifying it with EMF amplifier, you can listen to them. Many artists work with EMF amplifiers in their artistic expressions. One can also use E-Textile techniques to make soft textile antennas and create wearable EMF listeners. In E-Textile […]

In order to create our own version of a “Northbelt” built into the elastic of a jumpsuit waistband, we developed a technique for laying out the circuit’s traces along the length of the elastic, and then jumping inside to tight-fitting pouches that fit vibration motors mounted on 2x5cm boards. The traces from the circuit run […]

After tearing apart some classic and novel datagloves, I realized it would be so simple to layout and produce a version of these multiple flex sensor rigs using a vinylcutter, some Kapton film and tape, copper tape sheets and velostat – to make an extended version of this stickytape sensor design.

When making eTextile circuit, the solder joint between hard component and conductive textile material tend to break as it get the most strain from flexing. To avoid this, the whole circuit can be placed on a fabric button so that it does not get bent. Here is the test LED embroidery circuit on a fabric […]

Based on the idea of this Common GND breadboard (electronic components) to snap (textile) connector, I wanted to think-through the work-flow of using such a breakout board that would allow me to prototype both circuit and wearable, with iterations and testing in between, without always re-designing how the two are connected.

As part of thinking about robustness and durability in our e-textile tailor shop, I’m revisiting some of the ways we’ve been making permanent and detachable connections between hard and soft components of e-textile circuits.

New manufacturers and distributors are always popping up and disappearing again. In this post we try to list some of our most used e-textile materials and where we purchase. Since we are based in Berlin/Germany we try to order as much as possible from local manufacturers and distributors/redistributors. We even started a list of super […]

“ohne mich” (engl. “without me”) Interactive Fiber-Optic Poetry in Motion For the opening collection of our KOBA Maßschneiderei – an E-Textile Tailor Shop we are opening in Berlin very soon – we are prototyping the items in this collection. One of these is fiber-optic poetry, two words embroidered in fiber-optics cables, but overlaid so that […]

14-17th November 2017 hosted jointly by Interface Cultures and Fashion and Technology departments at the Art University Linz, Austria * * * This workshop is only open to Art University Linz students. Students should only sign up for this course if they can commit to attending the full schedule (see bellow). * * * >> […]

Week 5 on the 21st of October 2017 as part of the Fabricademy As part of the Fabricademy we will teach one of the week sessions introducing electronics textiles as a field of making soft, flexible, wearable electronics. Students will learn techniques by copying swatches as well as producing their own unique designs. In this […]

This credit-card size flex circuit translates the resistance between two probes into the resistor colour code. Conveniently the resistor colour code chart can be mounted just bellow the LEDs so that you don’t actually have to remember it for this tool to be useful. This version is a first prototype and with through-hole components not […]

Made during PIFcamp 2017, this textile sensor detects the impact of a conductive pendulum slapping against the wristband when the wrist is twisted back and forth in a flicking action. The conductive pendulum is made from a small heavy stone collected by the Soca river that has been sewn into a stretch conductive pouch.

These Sonic Insoles demonstrate a simple way of adding pressure sensors in your shoes. Fusing strips of conductive fabric to the surface of a robust base material such as felt. Cutting shapes of piezoresistive fabric for the pressure sensitive areas. Punching holes for sewing and using thick thread to hold everything together.

in progress… Inspired by Vaclav’s Magic Shoe connections… Poke wires through strips of conductive fabric and soldered them to stripy protoboard. Solder quickly at low heat to avoid that the heat of the soldering will melt the stretch conductive fabric and burn the conductive layer of silver.

— work in progress — Making electrical connections and not making electrical connections are the most common challenges when working with electronic textiles. This chart lists a variety of materials and ways of making connections (making contact) and not making connections (insulating) between them.

Breadboard to Metal Snap Converter The worlds of electronics and textiles are separated by their inability to connect across shared connections. But in the world of electronic textiles you want to be able to share power, data, GND. To bridge this gap, and make electrical connections between these separated worlds, I made this breadboard to […]

30th July – 5th August 2017, at PIFcamp in Slovenia. KOBAKANT will be joining PIFcamp this year to design and build “all-natural wearable technology”. Merging natural and technical materials and mechanisms to produce a new style of technological cladding – wearables to protect us from the future.

22 – 23 July 2017, at Les Moulins de Paillard in Poncé-sur-le-Loir, France eTextile Summer Fest is a weekend long event that is open to everyone who would like to join. The event will be held at the Paillard Centre d’Art Contemporain & Résidence d’Artistes, Poncé sur le Loir, France. If you are curious to […]

As I got a new stretchy fusible/heat bond from Bemis, I started to experiment with bonding fabrics with iron. Making bend sensor with this technique is super quick, super easy and works very very well as a sensor. Rachel Freire has been working a lot with the heat bond and eTextiles as second skin project […]

The following is a collection of Datagloves made using electrically conductive fabrics that react to strain (stretch, pressure) with a change in electrical resistance (piezoresistive effect), allowing them to sense the movement of the fingers. Connections are made from these fabrics to classic electrical wires and circuitboards, so that a microcontroller can translate these analog […]

June 26th – 29th during the NODE Festival in Frankfurt, Germany Not a workshop, but a participatory performance. The VVunsch VVerkstatt is an installation/intervention that deals with making wishes come true. Throughout the NODE festival the VVunsch VVerkstatt will provide a place for discussing the role of technology as a tool for making wishes come […]

Time: May 19,20 2017 10:00- 17:00 as a part of Weissensee Art Academy Berlin, Soft Interactive Technology 2 course Location: Print Lab and eLab, Weissensee Art Academy Berlin In this second part of the Soft Interactive Technology 2 course, we will have 2 days of experimenting with thermochromic screen printing on textile and designing the […]

Wednesday 10th May 2017, 17:30 – 19:30 at the Toronto Wearables Meetup at the Social Body Lab at OCAD University in Toronto, Canada. Pins are sharp and familiar, abundant and conductive. Used in textiles as tools for prototyping, to make quick connections between materials. Lets examine these pins closer, treat them as materials themselves and […]

A breakout board for the ATtiny84. Designed to sit on the back of the hand and interface to 5 textile stretch sensors on three fingers. Reading their analog values and translating them into lighting patterns as well as sending their analog sensor data over serial rx and tx connections.

Please also see SMA smocking post >> http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=5276 Smocking is an old textile technique that gathers fabric in certain pattern to create 3D decorative pattern on textiles. There are many tutorials and patterns online, but I had a nice reference book called The Art of Manipulating Fabric by Colette Wolff. From many smocking patterns, I […]

It is tricky to make a good connection as it does not really stick to solder. Yes, if you are patient, you can drop a lot of solder on copper tape (or other type of copper surface) and dip the edge of the SMA to connect. But, it is tricky. Another way is to crimp […]

You need to “train” or memorize the shape, in order for SMA (Shape Memory Alloy) to change its shape to what you like. There are many tutorials you can find, from heating up with blowtorch to using candles. In this example, I am using Flexinol 0.001 LT from robotshop (http://www.robotshop.com/en/dynalloy-flexinol-010-lt-actuator-wire.html). Perhaps it differs on which […]

Time: April 27,28 2017 10:00- 17:00 as a part of Weissensee Art Academy Berlin, Soft Interactive Technology 2 course Location: eLab, Weissensee Art Academy Berlin In this 2 days workshop, we will explore methods to move textiles with electricity using SMA (Shape Memory Alloy) and electromagnetism. On the first day, we will explore materials, techniques, […]

Monday 24 April 2017, 12:30 – 15:20 at the Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA. This workshop will only be open to students. Pins are sharp and familiar, abundant and conductive. Used in textiles as tools for prototyping, to make quick connections between materials. Lets […]

Tuesday March 14th & Tuesday March 21st 2016, 18:00 – 20:00 in the Hybrid Craft Lab at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. A short hands-on activity, following a presentation about my work. We will start by going outside to collect materials from around campus. Leaves,needles, twigs, pine cones, stones, straws, berries, cans, coins… anything […]

Made in the Hybrid Craft Lab of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, for the Jewish carnival celebration Purim, this mask is made from spoons and sticks intended for stirring sugar and milk into coffee.

13-17th December 2016 hosted jointly by Interface Cultures and Fashion and Technology departments at the Art University Linz, Austria * * * This workshop is only open to university students * * * Fashionable Technology I Textiles are one of the oldest forms of technology, we’ve been wrapping our bodies in material for 100,000 years. […]

December 2,3,9,10,2016 10:00- 17:00 elab Weissensee Art Academy Berlin. In a morning, I push a button to start the electric kettle to make a cup of tea, turn on the radio by sliding the on/off switch and turn the knob to tune into the radio station I want to listen to. I open my laptop, […]

This is a demonstration setup that allows you to plug a variety of resistive textile sensors into a Teensy and either read the sensor values as Serial communication, or midi commands. The textile sensors are designed with their leads ending in two 9mm metal snap fasteners – 1 male, 1 female. This snap connection connects […]

28 & 29th November 2016 as part of the Madtech course at the Frank Mohr Institute in Groningen, The Netherlands This workshop is only open to Madtech students. An Experimental Research Lab In this two-day workshop we will explore paper’s ability to move and be manipulated. Using a range of conductive materials to invent and […]

September 27-28th, 10:00- 17:00 Design Research Lab, UDK Berlin Germany. Workshop subscription limited to ArcInTex PhD students. When creating e-Textile sensors, we tend to consider its electrical property and function, but how about its aesthetic language? Especially when worn on bodies, e-Textiles becomes a part of one’s fashion statement. Can we imagine a chic bend […]

September 27/28th 2016, 17-21:00 at Anselma in Ljubljana/Slovenia This workshop will take place at the end of my one-month residency at Ljudmila in September 2016. The idea for PIFpouch was inspired by a week of hacking in the Slovenian Alps during pif_camp 2016. “PIF” comes from the Slovenian “piflar” which means “nerd” or “hacker”. Workshop […]

Inspired by Pauline, Paul and Jussi‘s foam switch that they submitted to the 2016 E-Textile Swatch Exchange, I made a quick try at constructing a pressure sensor matrix with the rows and columns sewn directly into a piece of anti-static/piezoresistive/ESD foam. It works!

A/D/A Festival Hamburg, on Friday, August 26th – Saturday, August 27th. „The goal of building a smart city is to improve quality of life by using technology to improve the efficiency of services and meet residents’ needs“ (from wikipedia) by silently monitoring the city through embedded sensors. In this two-day workshop, us, the citizens, we […]

This first ohmGlove prototype is an attempt to make a wearable version of the ohmHook. It allows the wearer to pinch a material between their fingers to listen to it’s electrical resistance as well as how it behaves under pressure. A pull-up resistor of the same material is sandwiched between little finger and palm. The […]

All-in-one demo of a fabric tilt sensor. This sensor demo is a simple circuit made up of a 3V coin-cell battery (inside a conductive fabric battery pouch), 6 red LEDs and a 6-way tilt sensitive switch. The tilt switch is made up of a common GND (negative power supply from battery) which is connected to […]

The ohmHook is crochet hook mounted on a circuitboard which measures the electrical resistance between the crochet hook and a crocodile clip connected to the opposite end of the tool handle. The resistance is displayed as the 10 bit reading of the microcontroller’s analog-to-digital converter.

This sensor is inspired by the “design” of fish scales and bird feathers: how single elements are repeated, and how it allows the main body to bend smoothly by sliding over the others. The scale in this sensor is made with Eeonyx non-woven conductive textile. The carbon is infused on non woven textile in order […]

Monday June 6th 2016, 9-17:00 at the Walker Art Center as part of the Eyeo Festival Electronic Textiles (E-Textiles) combine traditional textile materials, tools and techniques with electrical engineering practices. These processes often require a mixed set of tools from both disciples in order to work material into it’s final textile form while knowing about […]

When you are controlling actuator that needs more than 5V or more than 40mA (this is the maximum current digital pins can supply), you can not directly drive this actuator from the digital pins. This is the case, when you want to use strong motor, embroidered speaker, SMA or any heat actuators.. and many more. […]

The arduino‘s analog pins are reading the voltage that comes in, not the resistance over the two points. When you want to use a resistive sensor (i.e. neoprene bend sensor), you need to manipulate the voltage that goes into the analog pins with the resistive change the sensor makes. For this, we can make a […]

April 29-30th 2016, 2-day workshop as a part of Soft Interactive Technology Course at Kunsthochschule Weissensee’s E-Lab in Berlin, Germany This workshop is only open to students of the university. This 2-day introductory workshop introduces textile students to the materials, tools and techniques to create textile sensors and how to read them with arduino microcontroller […]

The open call for eTextile Summer Camp 2016 is out now. The eTextile Summer Camp is a week-long event that brings together expert practitioners from the fields of eTextiles and Soft Circuitry. Gathering in the countryside of France, the camp offers participants space and opportunity to come together professionally and casually to exchange knowledge, share […]

Wednesday March 2016 at the Growlery in San Francisco, USA In this short evening workshop we will weave electromagnets on circular looms strung on paper cups. We will weave a spiral of conductive thread, that is spaced out (isolated) by the addition of a non-conductive thread. These spirals simultaneously make up the electromagnets and membranes […]

or: “Analog Tilt Sensor“ Instead of treating each conductive petal contact of the this fabric tilt sensor as an individual digital input, the petals are connected through a series of fixed resistances (conductive thread or fabric with a high resistance) and the last or first petal is this resistor ladder is connected to an analog […]

A lot of eTextlile/wearables projects are placed in the world of alternative future, like our project “Crying Dress”. These projects probably falls into the category of Critical Design or Speculative Design, where the designers/artists talk about their concern about the current situation by speculating the exaggerated version of that matter in future and design a […]